Did Justin Martyr (150 AD)
Condemn Instrumental
Music in Worship?

    Christians once believed that Justin Martyr, writing only two to three generations after the Apostles, had revealed that musical instruments had been removed from praise in New Testament times. Maybe you’ve heard the quote. Perhaps you will be surprised as I was to learn that scholars have considered that quote to be spurious for over a hundred years.

    Justin Martyr was an early Christian apologist and philosopher. Born in 100 AD in the city of Flavia Neopolis in Samaria,¹ he knew the Jewish religion. He was not, however, a Jew by race,² but was probably of Roman descent.³ He was converted in Asia Minor (possibly in Ephesus) in about 132 AD.⁴ Scholars today identify his “Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew” and his first and second “Apologies” as authentic works.⁵ His outspoken defense of Christianity even in Rome itself led to his martyrdom there around 165 AD.

    Certainly, no one argues that Justin Martyr’s writings carry the weight of scripture. Still, given his second-century vantage point, not to mention his familiarity with Greek philosophy and the Jewish religion, his Christian perspective on just about any topic would be of interest to us today.

    This is why so much attention has been paid to a quote purported to have come from him regarding his view of musical instruments in worship. Those today who oppose the use of musical instruments in Christian assemblies frequently lead with this quote in their websites, sermons, and even an occasional book. Depending on the translator, Justin Martyr is said to have written something like this:

Simply singing is not agreeable to children, but singing with the lifeless instruments and dancing and clapping; on which account the use of this kind of instrument and others agreeable to children is removed from the songs in the churches, and there is left remaining simply singing.

Some of those who cite this quotation will give its source: question 107 in a lengthy work entitled, “Questions and Answer to the Orthodox.”⁶

    The growing popularity of the quote among laymen makes its absence in scholarly writings all the more striking. Here we find a quote condemning musical instruments in the church supposedly written near the year 150 AD, and yet scholars on both sides of the debate unanimously agree that condemnation of musical instruments in worship was born some 250 years later, around 400 AD. Everett Ferguson, who opposes the use of instruments in “public worship,” reflects on the silence of the early centuries regarding instruments in worship and writes,

The conclusion that the early church did not employ instrumental music in worship does not rest, however, on inferences from silence. There are explicit statements from early Christian writers to the effect that Christians did not use instrumental music. …Statements written near the year 400 from both the Greek and Latin halves of Christendom declare the absence of instrumental music in Christian worship.⁷

    Similarly, of his own compilation for Music in Early Christian Literature, James McKinnon assures us,

Thus, in an important area like liturgical psalmody, virtually every passage known to the author that makes a unique contribution to the subject, however slight, is included.⁸

McKinnon quotes Justin Martyr, noting that Martyr makes no mention of singing at all in his detailed description of a second century Christian assembly,⁹ but his "Martyr" section says nothing of the quote from “Questions and Answers to the Orthodox.”

    In the same way, Gerhard Delling identifies the passages where Justin Martyr uses the various New Testament words for "sing" or "song," making no reference to “Questions and Answers to the Orthodox,” let alone this quote within it.¹⁰

    Scholarly disregard for this citation from Martyr is unanimous. We must ask what the scholars know that leads them to take no notice of such a potentially significant quote.

    You may already have noticed that “Questions and Answers to the Orthodox” does not appear in the list of authentic works of Justin Martyr cited at the beginning of this article. Scholars have recognized it as spurious for over 100 years. The "Justin Martyr" entry in the modern Encyclopaedia Britannica (cited above) no longer mentions it at all, but the online version from 1911 (Classic Encyclopedia) identifies it with other spurious works attributed to Martyr, concluding, “None of these writings … can be attributed to him [Justin Martyr].”¹¹ Writing in 1840, George Stanley Faber was already demonstrating that the internal evidence did not allow an early date.¹² Another online resource, Catholic Encyclopedia, notes that while one manuscript attributes it to Theodoret, another possible author is Diodorus of Tarsus.¹³ Either of these authors would place the document near the year 400 AD. Armed with this information, we return to McKinnon, where we find our “Question 107” and its answer labeled as “pseudo-Justinian,” attributed instead to Theodoret, who died in 466 AD.¹⁴

    Certainly we would like to know why the work was once attributed to Justin Martyr. More than that, we wonder about the impact of this misquote in the history of the debate over instruments.

    Why was “Questions and Answers to the Orthodox” once attributed to Justin Martyr? The answer is that what is possibly the most valuable manuscript of his writings includes it. Known as Parisinus graecus 450, this manuscript carries a colophon dating it to the year 1364. The compilation contains “Questions and Answers to the Orthodox.” We don’t know where the manuscript was produced nor anything of its history until it surfaced in 1540.¹⁵ We will therefore likely never know why the copyist thought that “Questions and Answers to the Orthodox” was a work of Justin Martyr.

    The incorrect attribution of that work to Martyr and his century has had repercussions from the day that manuscript appeared right up until today. John Price identifies William Perkins (1558 – 1602) as “one of the leading theologians among the early Puritans,” noting that Perkins depended upon “the example of the early Church Father, Justin Martyr, in support of his own rejection of musical instruments.” (Perkins cited the quote from Questions and Answers 107.)¹⁶ Price adds that the influential British preacher Charles Spurgeon (1834 – 1892) also justified his opposition to instruments based upon Martyr.¹⁷ The seeds of the split between the Christian Churches and the non-instrumental Churches of Christ were sown around that same time, with the Millennial Harbinger citing this "quote" from Martyr to support its opposition to musical instruments.¹⁸

    One can only wonder how many good men made bad decisions based on bad information, mistakenly believing that a Christian had condemned musical instruments in praise only a couple of generations after the Apostles. We will never know how many, but we are no longer misinformed. As already cited above, today we know that written opposition to musical instruments in praise began 250 years after Martyr, more than three centuries after the Apostles, not two generations.

    We must no longer divide Christ’s church based on statements that Justin Martyr never made. More than that, we must no longer divide the church based on statements that neither the Apostles nor any inspired writer … nor Jesus himself … ever made.

    My book, Missing More than Music (AuthorHouse, 2008), is one of numerous sources for further study. There you will see more detail on how written opposition to secular settings involving singers and instruments began around the year 200 AD (with an exception for praise with instruments), and how Christians who first opposed praise with instruments (around 400 AD) condemned their use as “evil” even in the hands of King David.

Danny Corbitt
March, 2010

¹Flavia Neopolis means “New city of the Emperor Flavius.” It was founded near or upon the ancient Hebrew city of Shechem by the Roman Emporer Vespasian in 72 AD, not long after his son and future emperor Titus had destroyed the temple in Jerusalem.

²Hanson, RPC, Selections from Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew (London: Lutterworth Press, 1963), p.7.

³Encyclopedia Americana: International Edition (Danbury, Connecticut: Grolier Incorporated, 1999), vol 16, p.244.

⁴New Encyclopaedia Britannica (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2007), Micropaedia Volume 6, p. 663

⁵Ibid., also Encyclopedia Americana, vol 16, p. 244, and Hanson, p. 7.

⁶Allan McNabb, Music in the Church, retrieved February 25, 2010, from Bible Study Guide website: www.biblestudyguide.org/ebooks/mcnabb/music.PDF [reads, “Justin's Questions and Answer to the Orthodox, Ques. 107, pg. 462.]”
  Also, John Price, Old Light on New Worship (Avinger, Texas: Simpson Publishing Company, 2007), p. 108.

⁷Everett Ferguson, A Cappella Music in the Public Worship of the Church (Revised Edition), (Abilene, TX: Biblical Research Press, 1972), pp. 52, 53.

⁸James McKinnon, Music in Early Christian Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p vii.

⁹Ibid., p. 20.

¹⁰Gerhard Delling, “Umnos,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing Co., 1972), volume VIII, 502.

¹¹Classic Encyclopedia [based on the 11th Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (pub. 1911)],"Justin Martyr," retrieved from www.1911encyclopedia.org/Justin_Martyr.

¹³George Stanley Faber, The Primitive Doctrine of Regeneration (London: R.B. Seeley and W. Burnside, 1840), p. 295, retrieved from Google Books: The Primitive Doctrine of Regeneration, p. 295

¹²Catholic Encyclopedia, "Justin Martyr," retrieved from www.newadvent.org/cathen/08580c.htm

¹⁴McKinnon, p. 107.

¹⁵Denis Minns and Paul Parvis, Justin, Philosopher and Martyr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 3-4.

¹⁶John Price, Old Light on New Worship (Avinger, Texas: Simpson Publishing Company, 2007), p. 108.

¹⁷Ibid., p. 71.

¹⁸W.K. Pendleton, Millennial Harbinger, volume 41 (Bethany, WV: W.K. Pendleton, 1870), p. 504, retrieved from Google Books: Millennial Harbinger, 1840, Vol 41